Page 9 of Evil Bones
“Gone where?”
“If I knew that I would have said.” Removing a lid from a steamer pan on the stove and slamming it onto the counter. “Gone to class. Gone to the pharmacy. Gone to the park to shoot up.”
“What?” Unable to keep the alarm from my voice.
“Forget it. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Is Ruthie being difficult?”
“She’s being Ruthie.”
“What does that mean?” I was pretty sure of her answer but wanted to allow Katy the chance to vent.
“The kid elevates moody to a whole new level.”
“She’s not really a kid anymore,” I corrected.
“Exactly. I’d welcome some of that gag-me-with-a-spoon adolescent angst. Instead, she talks like she’s going on thirty. Do you know what her favorite book is?”
I shook my head.
“Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dyingby the Dalai Lama.”
Katy crossed to the sink. Returned to the stove and emptied a colander of mussels into the pan.
I waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, I prompted,
“What do you mean by moody?”
“She’s all sunbeams and rosebuds one minute, sulky the next. She’ll want to talk about something, I mean, TMI to the max. The breakup with her boyfriend, the reason she barely graduated because of a D+ in algebra, the definition of consciousness. But if I ask the simplestfollow-up question, she shuts down like I’m a cop trying to rubber-hose a confession.”
“That kind of unpredictability can be hard.” Hiding a smile at the irony. My daughter had been prickly as hell during her teens. Still was, at times.
“It’s always fucking eggshells with her.”
Katy ladled out two servings of mollusks and carried the bowls to the table.
“Let’s eat.”
I took my place, tore off and buttered a segment of bread. Opened a mussel and scooped out the soft, gray flesh.
We ate in silence for a while, the only sound the rattle of our shells hitting the discard bowl.
I spoke first.
“Is Ruthie still working at the shelter?”
Years back, Katy had been gutted when her fiancé was killed by an IED while on a Peace Corps mission in Afghanistan. Though she had no legal claim to his estate by virtue of their relationship, his will had left her a large sum of money and she’d used it to establish a charity for homeless veterans. She’d named the organization the Aaron Cooperton Foundation in honor of her lost love. She’d also founded the Charles Anthony Hunt Center, a home for unhoused vets, named in honor of one of my friends who’d also died tragically young.
The organization and the shelter remained Katy’s two passions. She put in long hours daily, overseeing the running of each.
“Mmm,” Katy offered through a mouthful of seafood.
“That’s working out?”
“Reasonably well.”
Several moments passed. Then I tried again.
